That's exactly what food stamps are supposed to do. If people have no food, it's tough to do anything else like work. If you eat and have a roof over your head, then you're better able to get back on your feet and put money into the system. And it's not analogous to stealing from anyone. It's everyone contributing to a well-rounded society that benefits everyone in it. Just as health insurance is paid into by people who may be healthy and not using their benefits now while other people who are sick are drawing money from it. It's a gamble on the well-being of your society as a whole. If you have 10 people who can't afford to go to college and they go to work out of high school instead, they'll make about 28k/year on average, so 280k over 10 years. Let's assume ALL of them manage to land jobs (which we know isn't the case, but let's skew it in favor of your world view here.) Their take home will be about 23k so they'll pay in taxes, medicare, social security, etc. about 5k/year, so the government ends up with $50k from them. The average state tuition is under 10k a year but let's round up. If the government pays in $40k for them to go to college and say only half of them get jobs later on that pay $51k/a year (what the average bachelor's degree holder makes) they'll take home about $39000 so they're paying $11000 into the system each year. It's still better than a wash. We know the employment rate for college grduates is better than that (closer to 80%) but again, even skewing it in favor of how you see the world, it's still better for the economy as a whole.